DS Timeshift
by Thor2000
Summary: William Collins, son of Barnabas and Angelique Collins, is thrust back to 1897 and ends up altering the events back when Petofi tried to conquer Collinwood.


There was a day when Angelique Bouchard would rather mix potions and invoke spells to get what she wanted. Today, she mixed cleaner and softener and invoked the powers of her washer/dryer to get her laundry clean. The days of anyone calling her a witch were long forgotten except for times of levity and humorous jest. She had married her Barnabus. He had said he had loved her during a time-traveling excursion in 1841, but he did know she would be alive and waiting for him in 1971 when he returned to a future without the ghost of Gerard Stiles.

Angelique Collins. Born in 1672, a sorceress by time she was fifteen, a witch before she was twenty. Before he possessed Stiles, Judah Zachary had seduced in the darkest of all arts and she rewarded him by turning him over to the authorities. She fled to Martinique where she was barely able to get by as a servant. That's where she met her Barnabas. Born in 1770, he was the wealthy scion of a powerful wealthy family. That's what she wanted, Clara DuPres taught her that. But first, she needed to do away with Clara's great-niece, Josette DuPres. Second, she needed to receive Barnabus's love. In the haste to receive it, she unwittingly cursed him with one of the darkest spells of all earth: vampirism. She tried to destroy him in what was then the far future of 1968, but failed and returned to the past. From 1970, Barnabas rejoined her in the past to elicit her help to destroy Zachary from creating a dire future. Mortal and bereft of her power, Angelique found love as she destroyed Judah herself. Her spirit would be trapped nowhere until two men in 1897 restored her to life.

It was now many years later and the Collins family was twice as big as it had ever been. She gave Barnabus a son, William, in 1971 and a daughter, Sarah in 1975. Her life was now devoted eternally to the three of them as she cleaned their home and cooked the dinners all with the luxuries of the late Twentieth Century. She put away her son's socks and underwear as she started for Josette's room and stopped. Through the open door, her blonde daughter was gesturing widely and whispering as she moved her teenage body in weird movements. She looked like she were... chanting! She appeared to be... invoking spells! Angelique's heart froze as she feared the worse. Her daughter! No! Don't let her repeat her mistakes! She forced herself to get closer as she listened and observed...

"Open your heart to meeeee..." Sara lightly sang to the music in her headphones as Angelique breathed a gasp of relief. "Darling, I'll give you love if you, you turn the... Mom! You scared the crap out of me!" Sara pulled off her head phones.

"I scared you?" Angelique hung her daughter's clothes away in the closet and put away non-mentionables in her top drawer. Sara watched as her mother entered the adjacent bathroom and resupplied her with towels. She stood before her reflection in the bathroom and pulled her sweater down and released it.

"Mom," She spoke with all the insecurities of a teenager. "Can I get implants?"

"What!" Angelique looked up.

"Well..." Sara fussed with her figure. "Lizzie and Amanda are younger than me and they got them..."

"Darling," Angelique stood behind her daughter as they looked into the reflection in the mirror. "They are no big deal."

"But that's all boys want!" Sara picked up and tossed her stuffed Garfield across the room.

"Honey," Mother peered into her young clone's face and thought she was staring at a younger version of herself. "You do not want a boy who wants you for your body. You want him because he loves you."

"I bet dad married you because you had them." Sara dropped hard to her bed.

"Your father and I have a different history." Angelique stood over her. "And I did not 'get them' until I had you and your brother." She forced a smile and started to turn out.

"Mom," Sara sat on the bed pouting while her mother stopped to dust off the vanity table. "Why didn't I get a baby sister or something?"

"Because…" Angelique turned back around and told the story. "I can't. When your brother was born, I went into cardiac arrest. Your brother nearly didn't survive either. When you were born, my heart stopped. I was warned if I ever tried to have another baby, I would not be able to survive. I wanted to have over a dozen children with your father, but I had to settle for one of each."

"Aunt Carrie said I was a breech birth."

"Did she tell you that you never slept for the first ten weeks of your life?" Angelique grinned like a mother. "I think your screams are still imbedded somewhere in this house."

Mother and daughter shared a moment as a door somewhere downstairs opened and slammed shut just before loud footsteps came up from the front foyer. It might have been the spirit of Jeremiah still inspecting the house but William passed by for his room with a fishing pole over his shoulder. He looked through the open door at the two of them.

"What's this?" he asked. "A female thing?"

2

Angelique put two plates of breakfast out as she turned on her heel to yell up the back steps once more. Barnabas was scanning the front page of the paper from the table as he sipped his coffee. No longer set to idyllically sit around and watch time go by, Barnabas had long ago at Professor Stokes's insistence been encouraged to teach colonial history at the university, a subject the former vampire and now proud father now embraced with a certain vigor. Two days out of every week, he left the Old House for that of a classroom and for the other five days he was home to listen to the sounds of a Twentieth Century family.

"Sara, William," Angelique called up the back stairs from the kitchen. "Maggie will be here in ten minutes to take you to school!" She turned back as Sara bounded down first. Her long hair accentuated by her black sweater and green skirt. The girl longed for the days when her Aunt Maggie was her governess instead of a would-be chauffeur, but as all the adults agreed, there was something about high school that could  
not be provided by a classroom in Collinwood.

"I need twenty dollars for new books." The girl sat down to her omelet, bacon and orange juice. "I'm also not coming home. I'm going over to Tricia's." Angelique glanced to Barnabas with a wry grin.

"What about your allowance?" It was the father's time to speak.

"Spend my allowance on school supplies?" Sara made a face. She looked to her father as he pulled out the wallet, the mystical household implement that reputedly threw out money endlessly to anyone who wanted it. William sauntered down the stairs nearby in jeans and a red sweater as he dropped before his plate and stared at it.

"William," Barnabas looked upon his beloved son. "The bank is open if you need anything." The young man groaned as some unfrozen caveman and stared at the omelet, which his mother had made with loving care before sipping his juice.

"Darling, are you feeling well?" Angelique felt his face.

"It's nothing." The high school senior sauntered a bit. "Just tired."

"I think he's got a math test." Sara was finishing her breakfast.

"Sweetheart," Angelique turned his face to her. "You have a fever. You better stay home." Barnabas dropped his paper and looked to his heir.

"But I gotta go to school." The young man mumbled.

"William," Barnabas stood. "You probably got wet while fishing with Quentin and your cousins. You better stay home and get some rest."

"But Jamison and I..."

"William," Angelique rarely called her son by name. "Upstairs!" She led the way as Maggie honked the horn on the van outside. Sara scrambled over her breakfast and grabbed her school textbooks.

"I'll get your homework..." Sara chimed as she grabbed her books and dashed out. Brother stared at sister a minute as Angelique followed her son back to his room at the top of the back stairs over the kitchen. As he turned around, the forceful and often irresistible presence of his mother was missing, but she soon re-appeared with her "witch's box," an odd chest of medicinal cures and concoctions created from the healing herbs and roots that grew on the property. He had named it the "witch's box" first and the name stuck ever since Dr. Hoffman had passed away many years ago. Pulling her son's sweater off his back, Angelique just sat on the corner of the bed and gave him a dose of her brew and turned to reach the concoction she rubbed into his chest. She grinned like a mother as William looked up to her with obvious trust.

"What do you think he has?" Barnabus asked arriving into the room littered with books, snack boxes and puzzle boxes.

"Probably just a cold." Angelique replied as she turned to stroke her son's forehead. "William, where does it hurt?"

Her son didn't answer.

"William, answer me." She nudged him, but he didn't respond. She reached for his hand as he failed to react to her.

"What is it?" Barnabus asked.

"William, you better not be trying to scare me!" Angelique lifted his eyelid and noticed his eyes had rolled back. She gripped his hand again and checked his forehead. She yanked her hand from the burning fever she felt. Her son had passed out once he lay down!

"Angelique," Barnabas came around the other side of the bed stepping over paranormal and science fiction magazines. "What's going on? Those poultices you make didn't go bad, did they?"

"No," Angelique opened and pulled her son's jeans off to cool him off. "I replace them the first of every month! I think there's a spell over him."

"No !" Barnabus remembered. "Anything but that." He had flashbacks of when William was born. The cure that Julia had injected into his body back then had reappeared in William when he was born, but in his tiny body back then, it had turned into a deadly poison that nearly killed him. Barnabas's cure for his vampirism had been passed to his son as a deadly poison and it had nearly killed him as an infant. No one knew how he survived, but many thought it had something to do with Josette's ghost taking protection over him.

"William," Angelique shook her son's body. "Wake up! Please wake up!"

"William, this is your father!" Barnabus ordered out loud and watched as Angelique took her necklace off and slipped it over her son's unconscious head. She held his head between her hands and forced his eyes open.

"Darling," She implored him. "My mind is linked with yours, I can see and hear what you feel. What do you see? What is happening to you?"

"They're..." William replied as if he was intoxicated. "Calling me..."

"No!" Angelique shook him. "Don't go! Barnabus, call Doctor Shaw!"

"Mom..." William saw other images instead of his mother's face. He was dreaming he was somewhere else, another place in time and space. The clothes were different and he thought he was in a small cottage like the one his Aunt Maggie owned in town. There were two other people beside himself: a man and a very beautiful woman. The room was full of artwork and pictures on stands and they both became aware of him and stared to William. The woman screamed!

"I don't believe it! I don't believe!" She began crying hysterically.

"I created you!" The man screamed at him. "And I can destroy you!" He waved a portrait of William on a sketchpad. He pulled the picture off and tore it as if he was trying to destroy it. The woman ran off screaming out of the cottage.

"I drew you..." The artist looked at William standing confusingly at him. "And yet you're still here! What are you!"

3

Tim Shaw spurred the horses down Main Street as he returned Amanda to Tate's studio. The two-story cottage was set back from the street and seemed hidden behind the apple trees in the front yard as he took her hand and headed to the door. They rapped hard on the white oak door and listened for stirring inside. Amanda gasped nervously suspecting Tate to have taken off, but yet she was a bit surprised as he answered the door.

"Mr. Shaw," Tate grinned as if nothing had happened. "What a surprise."

"You're not surprised at all." Tim grinned cockily as he escorted Amanda back to this house to inspect her accusations of what had happened here.

"Mr. Tate, you know why I'm here. Amanda," He turned to her. "Come on in, nothing's going to hurt you here."

"I don't know why anything should happen to anyone as pretty as Mrs. Harris." Tate pretended to continue painting.

"The last time she was here, she saw you create a man."

"She saw me do what?" Tate chortled unconvincingly.

"She saw a sketch you drew come to life."

William listened from the closet he had been tossed in. He had had weird dreams before of secret agents and costumed heroes and extremely beautiful women, but never before anything close to this. The realism was astonishing, the surrealism... Was missing. Usually he could will himself into the Batman to go jumping over rooftops or fly through the air as some Man of Steel, but this, like most every other dream he'd ever had before was more real than anything he thought he'd ever experienced. His clothes, the things in this closet, they were older and more out of date than anything he'd ever imagined and the detail! The bottom of the closet was cluttered with boxes of blank canvases and paint-encrusted rags and all sorts manner of debris. He wondered what his old camp counselor Angus MacGyver would do as he checked the doorknob. Seconds later, the door was yanked open. The man with the gun looked like family physician Doctor Timothy Shaw but a much younger version of him. The same woman as before screamed.

"That's the man," She insisted. "That's the man he created!" She began weeping.

"You really created him?" Shaw asked.

"Yes."

"The way you created her?"

"Yes." Tate admitted again.

"How'd you do it?" Shaw blindly waved the gun. "What happens?"

"I don't know, it just happens." Tate answered as Shaw grinned to William.

"Draw me one." Shaw gripped William's arm tightly. Still feeling a bit of the pangs of his illness, William looked around and tried to think. He wasn't sure if he liked or understood what was occurring.

"Draw me one right now!" Shaw insisted.

"I can't!" Tate dramatically turned away. "I'm not going to draw anymore."

"Maybe not now, but think of the possibilities…" Shaw glanced over Amanda silently weeping.

"I'm thinking of the possibilities and it terrifies me." Tate looked back.

"Well, it doesn't terrify me." Shaw grinned as the opportunist he was.

"In fact, it rather intrigues me. This creature here fascinates me. In fact, if you don't draw me one, I'll have to take this one with me."

"No!"

"Yes!" Shaw waved again with the gun as William reacted. Remembering enough of his sister's self-defense movements and how she practiced on him without his permission, he grabbed Shaw and flipped him over. Amanda started screaming once more as he raced for the door and ran out with shots being fired. He tossed over a picture behind him as he ran for daylight, jumped over a hedge and ran harder than he'd ever done before. Shaw pushed Tate aside and chased after him.

Dodging carriages and men dragging carts, William hesitated. What happened to the town! Dirt streets, the buildings looked newer, old buildings he had watched ripped down were back. The Collinsport Historical Society was back into a one-story courthouse. All the women wore long skirts and the men were in old-fashioned period clothing. None of them bothered to notice him as he ran through the middle of town.

Shaw fired at him as he ducked. Charging down the middle of the street, he wanted to try to follow his instinct to return to the Old House, but first he had to avoid getting shot at by Dr. Shaw's grandfather. Knocking over displays of fruit and merchandise among the storefronts, he tried to lose the younger Shaw with the gun. He finally removed the jacket binding him and threw it away as he saw the old wrought iron fire escape in the alley next to Trask Mortuary. He jumped up and remembered climbing this to look at girls from the roof with his cousins Jamison and J.R. and started ascending up to the flat roof. Tim Shaw was a few steps behind as he climbed up after him. William wondered where he was as he realized the building next door proved to be missing. It hadn't been built yet.

"Okay you..." Shaw reached the roof. "Come along and I..."

"Say hello to Batman!" William grabbed some barrel hoops and threw them like Frisbees as Shaw jumped for the roof to miss them. The gun skidded from his hand as he looked up. He watched the artificial young man he had been chasing take a running leap and jump off the three-story roof!

William grabbed the banner strung across the street announcing the Summer Days Festival and rode it to the street below. His weight ripped through it as it slowed his descent enough to keep him from breaking his legs. The landing nearly knocked the wind out of him though as strangers looked oddly toward him and tried to ignore the spectacle. Dodging another carriage, William took off down another alley and entered on Parker Street beyond Main Street. He slowed down trying to catch his breath trying to be inconspicuous. He leaned back to one of the buildings and looked around trying to restrain his racing breath. Ahead of him, he watched another man in period dress dump a newspaper into a public wastebasket and went to retrieve it. He checked the date...

"August 5, 1897."

"1897!" He screamed out loud and got a few looks. He tried to think as he began wandering. He looked behind him carefully as Shaw emerged from the alley with the gun. Looking for someone running away from his sudden arrival, he didn't think to check the young man strolling and reading the paper down the street from him.

"Think, Collins, think..." William mumbled to himself. 1897! Somehow, someway, he was back in time. What was there now? Judith Collins was in custody of Collinwood now after the death of her grandmother, the widow of Gabriel Collins. Her older brother was Edward, Uncle David and Aunt Carrie's great grandfather. There was also the youngest son Carl and Benjamin Collins who was off at college during these events. And then there was...

Quentin! Uncle Quentin's ancestor! According to his Uncle Quentin, he, his mother and father would be here with Aunt Julia from the present trying to solve the secret that kept his uncle's ancestor haunting the estate in 1968. He once thought it was a wild story his uncle had told him to scare him, but Quentin had always insisted it was true. It had to be. It was his only chance. Somehow, it all almost tied together except for a few things. They had used the so-called stairway through time in the basement, but then, how'd he get here? He hadn't used any so-called staircase. Either way, he had to get to Collinwood. He had to think up a cover story to get him in unless he could find either of his parents and convince them, but could he be sure the tales of his Uncle Quentin were true? He looked across the street and saw a familiar face. Her face suddenly proved all those crazy stories his Uncle Quentin told were true!

"Mom!" William raced across the street to Angelique Bouchard. She was also dressed in the period and leaving the drugstore with a parcel at a inconspicuous pace. "Mom!"

"Excuse me," She looked at him with an odd look. "But I believe you have me confused with someone else!"

"No, mom, it's me!" He looked at her. "I traveled back too from the future!" She just scoffed and ignored him.

"Mom, please," He insisted as he told her about herself. "Your ancestor was Angelique Miranda DuVal. Your husband is Barnabus Collins. You hate Halloween and love cooking. You..."

Something struck a cord in the opportunistic white witch and she whirled back intriguingly. The things he said, the things he implied. She stared into the young man's strange brown eyes as her mind reached out to her spirit guides and his own ungated memories. She suddenly felt a barrage of memories she was yet to experience and joys she wanted to have. In dream-like images, she saw herself giving birth, singing with motherly love and happily married to her Barnabas! It was too incredible and too unlikely for her to accept, but she wanted to accept it and experience it for herself! Her hands reached to his collar to see if he was real and felt a necklace underneath. A gold necklace exactly like the one she was wearing now! That was her proof! She was unconsciously linking to her future self and rising in hysterical joy to see everything she wanted coming true and what she needed to do to get there! Her heart felt heavy as pang of joyful emotion charged through it.

"William!" Her voice uttered as tears fell from her eyes. "My... my... I have a son!" She gripped him tightly as tears of joy rolled down her face...

4

In 1897, barely anyone knew Pine Road Rectory was still in the woods east of Collinsport yet the few figures that hid out there. Illuminated by gas lamps and whatever else, the main hall of the rectory served as the best location to hide out apart from the Old House as Dr. Julia Hoffman used her knowledge of medicine to stave off Barnabus's current vampire dependency.

"So David is free of Quentin's control in the present." They discussed the events passing by them and ahead of them.

"Yes," Julia injected him. "Barnabas, why don't we just return to the present..."

"I don't dare." Barnabas looked at her as her words filled him in on details happening since he had departed from the time then known to him as 1968. "I've changed history so much. I don't dare leave Petofi with the knowledge he already has. We can't return until we are sure everything is set as it was." He became silent as they heard the footsteps out on the veranda. He had changed the sequence of events in the past too far and his secret existence as a vampire revealed for the moment. Reduced to live in hiding for fear that Count Andreas Petofi would learn much more, he sat in shock and listened to the sounds of prowlers. Two sets of footsteps on the outside grounds crunched the dry leaves and weeds and advanced on the outside entrance. It could have been Petofi and his assistant Aristede as Barnabas and Julia nervously watched and waited before noticing Angelique returning with more medical supplies.

"This is everything I could get." She stood in her long violet dress as she dropped the bag by Julia.

"Good," Julia looked through it. "I hope it..."

"One question," Angelique grinned oddly to Barnabas. "Just how many people are you planning to visit from the future?" Barnabas looked to Julia a bit perplexed.

"What do you mean?" Barnabas asked as Angelique looked out to the outside foyer. She gestured to the figure standing out in the shadows. It was a young man. He had dark brown hair and eyes; his face had a bit of nervous tension in them as he scanned the room and looked with odd recognition upon them. Angelique grinned fondly and took his hand.

"Congratulations," She declared beaming ear to ear. "It's a boy."

"What sort of game are you pulling this time?" The reluctant vampire asked of his estranged wife.

"Dad..."

"What?" Julia was incredulous.

"His name is William Benjamin Collins." Angelique grinned ear to ear as she looked upon her son. "He was born on September 9, 1971..."

"1971!" Julia didn't believe it. "Barnabas, that's two years into our future!"

"You're lying." Barnabas glared to Angelique. It was a face the son had never seen his father make. "This is another trick..."

"Is it?" Angelique grinned as she raised a confident eyebrow.

"Dad, please," William spoke with nervous assurance. "It's me. I know why you're here. Uncle Quentin told me years ago how the four of you came back through the stairway in time to confront his ancestor. Uncle David was possessed, you had to..."

"I don't want to hear this nonsense." Barnabas refused to hear the meandering ramblings of another likely liar. Julia meanwhile grinned and began chuckling.

"Uncle Quentin...?" She began laughing. It wasn't so unlikely to her. Quentin had been told the portrait Tate had painted for him would keep him young for as long as it existed. It was very likely as well that he would pass himself off as his own descendant as Barnabas had.

"Barnabas... Quentin re-invented and put himself into this year's events..." She laughed a bit more. "Stairway through time? Only Quentin could make up something like that!"

Angelique decided briefly to tell the truth then recanted. She knew the  
stairway was real. Before Quentin and Nicholas Blair restored her to life, she had been there as well. She had died in that time with Barnabas confessing his love for her and had stayed close to Collinwood in spirit form before restored to life for these events. The Barnabas of this time had yet to live through those moments, but as much as she wanted to tell him, she saved that truth for later and stepped closer to her Barnabas with the words of his undying love still in her ears. A pity to her he still had to live those events when proof of their happiness was already before them.

"Barnabus," She started. "He is our son."

"A trick." He replied back. "Angelique, I care for you as a friend, but Jos-" She put her fingers on his mouth and stopped him from talking to keep William from learning too much.

"I don't understand." William started. "You two were always so much in love. Why are you acting like this?"

"William," Julia saw a lot of Barnabas and Angelique in him as she gently distracted him. "Let's just say your parents have had their ups and downs. One question I have, why did you come to this time?"

"I haven't a clue. I thought I was dreaming..." He gazed upon her and contemplated warning her of the cancer that took her life. She was so tall when he was young, but now she was just a bit shorter. It was like seeing an old family friend again as the surreal reunion grew larger.

"Barnabas, I must speak to you." Quentin had arrived on horseback and hurriedly came in. He glanced at William and Angelique and drew silent as if he was hesitant to speak what he had to say.

"Quentin, what's happened?" Barnabas met him. "What's changed?"

"Who's this?"

"As odd as it sounds," Barnabas sounded as if he were hesitant to admit anything. "My son."

5

It was a quiet ride from the old rectory across the woods to Collinwood. The moon lit up the trail for them as William sat next to Quentin trying to decide what he thought of the man now. So many of the odd idiosyncrasies from his secretive past made a lot of sense to him now as nephew looked to uncle with a bit of odd fear and nervous apprehension.

"You're quiet." Quentin remarked.

"I can't believe that... all this time..." The portion of truth he'd been force-fed unnerved William. "You and the man you said was your ancestor... you're one and the same."

"William," Quentin stopped the horses and looked back to his future nephew. It could have been worse if William had stayed behind and saw his father hiding from the sun in a casket. William could have even lost it had he learned his mother was a witch from the Seventeenth Century he had revived as a potential ally! No, he had to learn the truth about his favorite uncle.

"William," Quentin re-started again. "I know it's hard, but... don't you realize how hard it's going to be for me. Bound by that accursed portrait, condemned to watch my loved ones die around me. The only solace to look forward is the far future when friends your mother hasn't made yet finally give me my life back." Quentin was sternly adamant. Tortured and absolute, he had a look of a man tormented by demons he had created and of fears no man ever had.

"You said I was your favorite uncle." Quentin implored to the young man's heart. "Don't judge me, because your verdict is no where near as bad as the one I've imposed on myself."

"I'm sorry."

"Forget it," Quentin spurred the horses and carriage. "Now, when we get to Collinwood, you'll be William Coleman. I know the Coleman's in Crabapple Cove and Hector there has a son named William so you'll be his son. Talk little, be polite and stay away from Edward, he hates everyone. In the meantime, tell me about this Maggie and my son. I'd like to know more about him."

"Well," William started as Quentin began to turn for the main road. A figure dashed out of the bushes with a lantern and jumped in the way of the horses. He held his lantern to his face and gripped the horses to calm them.

"Quentin," he replied. "My master will see you now."

"Aristede," Quentin grinned sarcastically. "If your master wants me, tell him to come for himself."

"Quentin..." Aristede looked up with obvious Slavic features and lifted a flintlock. "You come now or your young friend gets it."

"William," Quentin looked over. "Ever meet the devil?" Aristede lifted himself up and sat next to William as he pushed the old gun into the young man's side. He grinned as if it were nothing personally as Quentin took the carriage from the main road off down the old North Road. The new Collinsport High School was built up here in 1975 leveling most of the old mill in creating far larger football fields, but it was pretty much intact and deserted as their sinister guide directed them into the basement. William glanced at the flintlock and wished he had it as a valuable antique, but as he was lead by it down into the makeshift dwelling, he noticed a lot of preserved antique furniture attended by a portly figure in black staring out from behind thick-rimmed eyeglasses.

"Quentin," A raspy voice turned from the man directing a symphony on an old victrola record player. Bouncing blue eyes looked out from behind his thick black-rimmed glasses. "You finally do me the honor. And who is this young man?"

"William Coleman," Quentin responded. "Count Andreas Petofi."

"Sir," William noticed Aristede hovering on the top step of the basement silently like a vulture waiting to swoop down on trouble.

"Such breeding," Petofi shook hands. "I don't meet many young men who are so polite." He put aside his baton and heaved his huge girth into a large Victorian chair as if it was a throne and he was a ruler.

"Quentin, as you know, my one and only fear are those accursed gypsies. They've never wanted to leave me alone no matter where I travel to escape them. But I have finally found the one place where I can go to be left alone." He jerked off the cloth cover from a small oak table. Lined up across it were seven black wands cut triangularly. Across the middle of them were white marks facing up from the table.

"And?"

"And I want you to take one last message to Barnabas Collins." Petofi's eyes danced under his thick glasses. "Tell him, if he does not tell me the secret of the I-Ching then I will use them to destroy him."

"Anything else."

"Young Mr. Coleman stays here with me." Petofi grinned demonically. His mutton chop sideburns curving as the antlers on some sinister goat god. "If you are not back in thirty minutes, the young man will be sent to meet his ancestors."

William grimaced at the irony. Quentin shot Petofi a look and sprinted up the stairs alone. Aristede and Petofi began laughing at him as they relaxed in the security of their plans.

"Sit down, boy." Petofi motioned to a chair and pulled out two glasses to pour some brandy. "I'm an old man, well, not for long, and I never get to have a truly intelligent conversation with anyone. Tell me, what fascinates you?"

"Well," William almost replied the amount of wood in the chair it took to support all his fat, but right now was not a time for making new enemies. "Mythology. Gods and Goddesses."

"Wonderful subject." Petofi sipped his brandy as he waited for William to respond. "Enlighten me."

"For one," William looked on the I-Ching wands. "The I-Ching originated in Tibet from the highest Sherpa priests. Even Confucius could not understand them. He thought they were created by gods to confound mortals."

"I am impressed." Petofi didn't feel pressured as he gestured to Aristede to leave him. "Please continue. I'm sure we could be the very best of friends..."

6

Ten of the thirty minutes Petofi had allotted to Quentin and Barnabus were left. William sat talking and discussing mythology with the seemingly ruthless alchemist as they shared a bottle of brandy between them and discussed the idea of old gods and their existence in the ancient world. Outside, Aristede stood watch and smoked his cigarettes as he waited for Quentin's return.

"So," Petofi chuckled a bit. "Is it your contention that these beings  
actually exist?"

"Well," William looked at the small Victorian clock near him. "The time-lining I've done lines up with other dates. Gilgamesh with the dates of a Sumerian flood, Deucalion with the explosion of Thera, the history of Troy with the Roman Empire."

"It's a shame your gods can't save you." Petofi stood as he checked his timepiece. "I don't think Quentin is going to make it back in time. You are the best company I've had in years."

"Oh," William grinned connivingly. "You can break one promise."

"I never break my promises."

William glanced at the surroundings in the room as he realized that Petofi with all his girth was probably not in good enough shape to fight him. Aristede was another matter. One lucky shot with that pistol and he would not have a present to return to at all. William passed his fingers over a silver candelabrum as he looked around then stepped back as Aristede came down the steps.

"Master," He started. "The artist wants to see you."

"Really," Petofi looked up. "Charles, what brings me the honor of your visit?" William turned nonchalantly to the wall as he recognized Tate from the studio.

"Petofi," Tate was seemingly agitated. "I have one... What's he doing here!"

"Mr. Coleman?" Petofi looked over. "He is our guest at the moment."

"Coleman?" Tate was incredulous. "Is that what he's calling himself? I created him like Amanda less than six hours ago!"

William bolted over Tate and leapt for the top of the stairs. He felt Aristede's hands on his collar grab him and throw him hard to the wall and felt the breath knocked out of him. Aristede pulled out his curved blade and threatened the young man with it as he danced it across his face.

"Aristede!" Pefofi stopped him then looked to Tate. "One of your creations?" He advanced on William. "How does an artificial being have such knowledge of such a convoluted subject as myth and history?"

"Let's kill him!" Aristede implored as the thought of murder excited him.

"No." Petofi raised his hand and placed it on William's heart then over his eyes. "Your will is mine, you have no will except what I give you. You will tell me the unbridled truth. Tell me who you are!"

"No!" William scuffled against Aristede's weight as he felt his mind being clouded by other images. His vision was being impaired as if he were drifting off. He had an urge to tell the truth and he couldn't stop himself. "My name… Is… William Benjamin Collins. I was born  
September 9, 1971. My parents are Barnabas and Angelique Collins..."

"What!" Tate reacted with intense disbelief.

"Extraordinary..." Petofi glanced to him and back to William.

"... I'm a student at Collinsport High School." William rambled on unable to stop. "I'm a member of the Class of 1989. I'm a member of..."

"Enough of these rambling trivial minutiae..." Petofi grinned. "So, you're another time-traveler like Barnabas and Mrs. Hoffman. My dear, Charles, it looks like your extraordinary gifts aren't as infinite after all."

"What do you mean?"

"You created a face out of nothing…" The mad alchemist continued. "And the likeness yanked young Mr. Collins out of the future." He turned to William. "Tell me boy, is Quentin a part of that future?"

"He's my uncle." The answer made Petofi start laughing.

"Master," Aristede loosened a bit. "I don't understand. How could..."

"Charles's painting of Quentin has given him eternal life." Petofi grinned pompously as his distraction allowed William to listen. "When I place my mind in Quentin's body, I shall turn him over to the gypsies, and then return here and send my spirit into the future to live my life anew as Quentin Collins."

"Like hell you will..." William punched Aristede as hard as he could in the face, then grabbed his arm and flung him into Charles Tate. Petofi watched as William's foot struck him hard to the stomach as the violent youth remembered how to fight. Tate felt Aristede's flintlock in his side and grabbed it. Barely aiming, he pulled the trigger as Collins tumbled from the stairs.

William started screaming as his stomach exploded. He looked up where he was and saw that Tim Shaw was over him now. Older, greyer and with a stethoscope behind his ears, he hovered over him and pushed him down to his bed. It was 1989 once more and his spirit had been violently ejected back to his body in the present after being killed, but the taste of his mortal death was bitter and poisonous.

"Shot me!" William screamed. "I've been shot!"

"William!" Shaw forced him to the bed as Angelique and Barnabus watched. Barnabas grabbed his son's arms and held them from flailing around.

"William!" Shaw fought the young man. "That was penicillin to fight your infection! You're hallucinating!"

Angelique screamed as she saw blood under the blankets.

"Oh my god," Dr. Shaw pulled back the comforter and saw his patient bleeding to death as the bed became stained with shades of dark crimson pouring from under the blankets. "Where did that come from! Mr. Collins, call an ambulance!"

"William," Angelique looked to her son as he went calm and stared up to her. "Where did that happen!"

"Tate shot me in Petofi's hide-out." William mumbled as Barnabas returned from the phone in the hallway and stopped at the door. Husband and wife passed glances as they recognized those names.

"Doctor," Barnabas turned to the grandson of the first Timothy Shaw. "The ambulance is on its way..."

"Barnabas," Angelique whispered. "Those names, could he..."

"No," The father in her husband was interested only in his son. "Quentin tells those stories all the time. He couldn't have been there. We would have met him."

"I can't believe it." Shaw was trying to stop the blood. William's wound was only in the muscular tissue under the skin just short of penetrating any organs. As he forced pressure against the numerous broken veins, the bullet had popped out through his fingers. He held the tiny round ball up in one hand. "It's the pellet from an old Nineteenth Century flintlock!"

7

Since the high school kids were exiled from hanging around the diner attached to the Collinsport Inn, they had taken to hanging out at the Blue Whale Bar and Grill. Jamison Collins and his football cronies went there to try out their fake ID's and get beer as they looked at the girls, but Bob Rooney who ran the place knew enough of the kids to not let them get away with anything. Jamison, nevertheless, loved the hamburgers the place made. William loved the crab and appeared here twice a week to get it.

"You're out of the hospital." Jamison Collins, son of Quentin and Maggie Collins, sat next to his cousin and ordered a soda.

"Yeah," William cracked another leg and dropped the white meat into a small container of butter.

"I've been meaning to ask you all day..." Jamison sipped his drink and snatched a few of his cousin's French fries. The jukebox blared with the sound of the Bangles in the background as other teenagers started dancing. "How do you get shot in the stomach while laying sick in your room?"

"Mom said it came through the window, ricocheted off the wall and hit me in the stomach." William continued as Jamison waved good-bye to some of his friends.

"Wouldn't you have a busted window?" Jamison looked at their reflection across the bar.

"I asked her that too." William looked briefly over to his cousin. "She said she'd briefly opened the window. I can't deny it didn't happen. I was out like a light."

"You can't remember anything?"

"Nothing." William dropped more emptied crab legs from his sticky fingers into an extra plate near him.

"Parents." Jamison sighed reached under the bar and took a paper cup with which to pour in soda in to take with him. "Remember when I saw Josette's ghost and your dad insisted it was a reflection of your mom all the way from the main house? They've got screwy stories for everything."

"Yeah," William remembered. "Hang around, we'll cut through the woods together."

"Can't." Jamison slipped off his stool. "I'm meeting Chloe at the movies. See ya!"

"Right." William watched his cousin split on him. They used to be the best of friends when they were little, but the more macho Jamison became, the less they had in common. William had become more cerebral and yearning to get out of town, while Jamison became more athletic and more of a lady's man. His Uncle Quentin and Aunt Maggie had raised him one-way, and he had been raised another way. Faithfully responsible, William looked at his bill and left the money to cover it before he turned round.

"You there..."

He looked up. Sitting in the back of the room, William noticed an old man sitting in the shadows. The light was bouncing off his glasses as if he were a cat as he sipped a brandy. Heavy and bearded with thick sideburns, he grinned oddly toward William as he motioned toward him.

"You're Barnabas Collins' son, aren't you?"

"Yes sir," William reacted with the strict Old World politeness his father had instilled in him. The old man looked familiar, as if he was a face from a dream. "Do I know you?"

"Perhaps," The old man's raspy voice sounded as if motioned to a chair. "Sit down."  
William pulled out a chair and nervously sat down. He had been raised to be respectful, but he still wasn't crazy about really old people.

"You don't remember me, do you?" He sipped his brandy as William responded. "My name is Victor Fenn-Gibbon. I'm a very old friend of your father and mother."

"From England?" William hesitantly relaxed. "They never tell me anything of their life there."

"I imagine." Fenn-Gibbon grinned secretly. "At one time, your father and I were practically rivals, but we soon came to an understanding. Just as things came to an understanding, there was an accident, and your father mistakenly thought I was dead."

"I'm sorry." William listened. "I can lead you to the Old House if you like."

"Oh, I'm sure I can still find the way in one form or another." He chuckled oddly. "In the meantime, please take this. I never had a son, I'd like for you to have it."

"Wow," William watched as Mr. Fenn-Gibbon removed a tiepin from his shirt and pinned it to his own flannel shirt. The old man placed his hand on William's and seemed to be staring into his eyes.

"I don't have... anything..." William felt himself inexplicably drifting off as his vision dimmed. He blinked his eyes a few times trying to wake up, but as his vision finally cleared, he gasped with shock. He was looking at himself!

8

William stumbled back from the image of himself laughing. He seemed to feel oddly out of breath and out of shape as he stood awkwardly, almost stumbling in the process. The old man had changed before him! Or had he! He watched himself stand up and walk out of the Blue Whale as he stepped back in stunned shock. He looked around barely able to handle the illusion that must have been before his eyes as he turned to the counter wondering if the  
crab he'd eaten had something to do with the hallucination before him.

"Mr. Rooney..." He started to speak. His voice! It had changed! He looked across the counter to the mirror on the wall and stopped breathing as his heart jumped a beat. He was now the old man in the glasses! What was going on here! He put his hands to his face to check the reality of what was happening to him and nearly screamed. He was an old man! He and the old man had changed identities! He was now him and he was now himself!

"Sir," Rooney looked across at him. "Are you okay?"

"That isn't me..." The old man's voice came out of William's throat as he answered. He stumbled back in shock, bumped into some strangers, and tried to find an answer for what had happened to him. Somehow, someway, he and the old man had switched bodies! He had to find him and get him to fix it again. He stumbled outside looking up and down the piers and scores of people coming out of the shops. The old man's face staring back at him from the windows around him, William felt the terror rising up in him. Probably more scared than any other time of his life, he walked the gangplank across the parking lot and crossed the street in front of Braithwaite Jewelers literally trying to find himself. Looking around, a police car passed him, made a u-turn and pulled up alongside him as Lt. Dirk Wilkins rolled down the  
window.

"Mr. Petofi?" He asked calmly.

"No." William shook his head as they stopped.

"The doctors and nurses at Rushmore are very worried about you." Wilkins continued. "Let us drive you back. You've obviously tired."

"No, I can't." William refused. "I must get my body back."

"Mr. Petofi," Officer Bruno Hess came out the other side of the patrol car. "We're not going to hurt you. We want to take you home to the hospital."

"No!" William screamed. "I'm not who you think I am." He quickened his steps and ducked into the hardware store past Sabrina Jennings. Hurrying to get away, William realized he might not have had his body, but he had his mind. The bell on the door rang as he knocked over displays behind him and grabbed two gallons of bleach. Mr. Fischer was screaming his head off as Hess and Wilkins scrambled over the falling shelves as Petofi ran for the back room. William looked back and smashed the two gallons to the floor as they exploded and covered the floor in one huge puddle of bleach. Just as Hess and Wilkins came closer, William glanced at the ingredients in the huge bottle of window cleaner and smashed it hard to the floor as well!

The ammonia reaction suddenly created a cloud that sent everyone racing out the front entrance gagging, coughing and gasping for air as Petofi raced out the back. Realizing he had little minutes before they raced around the block, William looked around for a place to hide. Emerging from the alley next to Colburn's Pharmacy, he watched a truck move out of the way and reveal a familiar red van in the gas station across the street that he recognized. Not far from it, his uncle Quentin emerged from the station from paying for his gas and headed jovially to his van.

"Uncle Quentin..." William felt the ancient heart within this old man's body about to burst as he raced across the street. "Uncle Quentin! Don't leave me!"

Quentin turned round and froze. That face, the glasses, it couldn't be! Not here, not now!

"No, it can't be..." He scrambled inside. "You're dead!"

"Uncle Quentin!" William reached through the window and grabbed him. "You've got to recognize me! Someone has stolen my body! Please! Please! You've got to help me!" Tears broke down his face as his world was turned its edge.

"J.R.? William?" Quentin stopped and noticed the tears rolling down Petofi's face and then the police officers across the street stopping and talking to people. They weren't getting very many replies, but eventually they were going to.

"Across the back seat!" He popped the side door as his hated enemy came around the car and slipped inside behind him. Closing it again, he turned the ignition and casually pulled off as sirens came from the distance.

"William," Quentin remembered seeing J.R. at the movies as he drove back to the estate. "Is that you?"

"Yes," Petofi's voice answered as he calmly reclined across the back. "How did you know? How did you know it was me? I don't think I'd have believed anyone else." He began crying and whining afraid for his life.

"I knew." Quentin answered as a patrol car raced past and a bead of sweat ran down his face.

9

Angelique slid her baked chicken into the oven and switched it on as she prepared for tonight's dinner. Her family would be coming home altogether within a few minutes of each other unless one of her teenagers trailed off to be with one of their friends. She stood chopping carrots at the counter as she turned and dumped them in the boiling hot water. A figure moved out of the corner of her eye.

"William!" She jumped straight back three feet. "You nearly scared the life out of me."

"I'm sorry." He grinned oddly as Angelique's mystical senses jumped. "I didn't mean to..."

"Would you like mashed potatoes tonight or whole potatoes?"

"Does it matter?" He glanced at the knife on the cutting board and cocked his head oddly in a devious manner.

"Darling," Angelique could not over-ride her clairvoyance for warning her of danger. "Are you alright? You're not feeling sick again, are you?"

"No," Her son grinned oddly as he glared to her. She stared at him equally odd as well. This was her son and she was suddenly scared to death of him! The phone on the wall by the back door rang as she looked up to it. William rolled his eyes to it and turned for the hall down to the foyer.

"I'll be in the parlor." He replied sinisterly.

"Yes, " Angelique picked up the phone as for the first time in her life she was scared to death of her son. "You do that. Hello?"

"Angelique," Quentin was calling from Rose Cottage. "Just answer yes or no. Is William there?"

"Yes."

"Get out of the house!" He was oddly alarmed. "It's Petofi! William is here in Petofi's body!"

Angelique clutched the phone harder as she tried not to drop it. Her eyes rounded as her heart started beating faster.

"What was that, Carolyn?" Angelique remembered her years as an actress in the 1920s and 1950s.

"Good girl." Quentin grinned as Petofi's body sat in his chair by the fireplace stunned into shock. "Get out and find Barnabus, fast!"

"You have those mushrooms." Angelique chuckled on the phone. "Good, I hope they're the right ones. I'll run up and get them." She carefully hung up the phone as she looked up and saw William in the back hallway listening. She grinned sweetly to him as she removed her apron.

"Sweetheart," she started. "I need to run up to the Main House. Watch the oven, will you?"

"I can run up for you."

"No," She insisted. "I can do it."

"But I'm already there." William grinned oddly again. "Back in a second," He paused. "Mother…" He grinned with malevolent intent and turned on his way. Angelique froze as she watched her son head out the front door. Her heart was pumping a mile a minute, her pulse was racing as she remembered the evil of the man known as Count Petofi and how he controlled the estate in 1897. How in the world did he survive all these years!

She grabbed the phone and tried to recall Quentin, but the line was busy. She tried again and again as she heard Barnabas arrive home from his car pool. She turned off her oven and stove and raced out to him.

"Barnabas…"

"My wife at the door." He beamed with his briefcase in one hand and his cane in the other. "I could get used to this."

"Barnabas," Angelique took his case and set it in the door as she pushed against him. "Petofi's back, and in the body of our son!"

"What!" Barnabas was incredulous. "But he couldn't be. He's dead."

"William must have changed something in the past." Angelique slipped into her cherry red convertible Jaguar automobile. "Quentin has William at Rose Cottage."

Quentin knelt down to eye level as William stared out from the body of this dying old man. He wasn't very optimistic or aware of what was happening as he lost his bearings with the world.

"William," Quentin looked at him. "Don't panic. I can help you through this. Don't give up." He had flashbacks of when it was him in this decrepit failing body.

"I'm scared, Uncle Quentin." Petofi's voice replied with more emotion now than ever before. "I want my mom. I don't want to die without her."

"You're not going to die..." Quentin heard Maggie calling out.

"Anyone home?"

"William, don't say anything." He straightened up. "Trust me and go along with what I say."

"Quentin," Maggie grinned, dropped two grocery bags in the kitchen as she came around the kitchen talking the whole way and kissed her husband. "Jamison is with a girl and Amanda is staying at the old house. And... who's this?"

"Andreas Petofi." Quentin grinned harmlessly. "A very old friend of my father. He's passing through on his way to Florida and I said he could rest here a while."

"Oh," Maggie's eyes came to life. "Good to meet you Mr. Petofi. Quentin never tells me much about his past."

"Enchanted." Petofi tilted his head to her as his eyes darted nervously to Quentin.

"Maggie," Quentin kissed her and grabbed his coat. "I know this sounds odd, but something else came up and I need to see Barnabas. Can you make sure he's comfortable until I can hurry back?"

"Sure, but..."

"I'll be back before you miss me." He kissed her again and hurried out. Maggie grinned confusingly at the odd man she married and looked down to the old man in her home looking up at her like a scared young boy.

"Would you like something to drink?" Her doe-like eyes widened in the way that made all men fall in love with her. "Tea perhaps?"

"Please," Petofi looked around from the chair in a very lonely way. "With a piece of lemon?"

"My nephew William drinks it the same way." Maggie turned to the kitchen. "I hope we can be very good friends as you tell me more about my husband's past."

10

Barnabas and Angelique advanced on the front doors of Collinwood with Quentin Collins and Willie Loomis together as a united force. The former caretaker had been quickly debriefed to get the kids out of the house and leave everything to the rest of them. There was a bit of nervous tension as they stopped and looked at each other not wanting to see what was inside. Barnabas squeezed the door handle and pushed through as Roger stood in the foyer, turned and glared at him.

"Barnabas Collins!" He sounded upset. "You have the unmitigated gall to return here!"

"Roger?"

"Roger? Who's this Roger?" He glared back at him angrily. "You take off with a grand lady as the Lady Hampshire and return without her? Your ex-wife by your side... If you've harmed Kitty..."

"Edward?" Quentin looked back with odd amusement.

"Quentin," Roger postured a bit and noticed a difference in him from being younger than he once was. "My god, you look like crap. Why do you look so old!" From the study, little Christopher Loomis ran out of hiding as the young boy jumped into Willie's arms.

"Daddy," The boy was scared to death. "Mommy and everyone's acting weird!"

"Show me." Willie asked.

"Carl, do you know this strange child?" Roger mistook his nephew-in-law for a great-uncle as Barnabas and Angelique entered and scanned the drawing room. Quentin grinned amusingly.

"Edward," He looked up grinning. "For all these years, there's been something I wished I had told you."

"What?"

"Shut up!"

Willie entered the kitchen as his teenage children J.R. and Lizzie manipulated their mother's condition to get pizza for dinner. Giggling between them, they pulled another pizza from the oven as Carolyn listened and danced widely to the wild rock and roll from the radio.

"I think I like this!" She danced widely as she spoke in a Cockney East England accent. "What you say this was? Pizza?"

"Oh, yeah, sure..." J.R. shot a dirty look to his younger sister with an over zealous grin. His mother's sudden new personality was so easy to be manipulated! "Are you sure you gave us all the credit cards?"

"What do I want with those things?" Carolyn pouted like a spoiled brat. Lizzie swung around and saw her dad holding her little brother.

"Dad," She started. "Mom's lost it!"

"Get out to the van now!" Willie ordered them. "Take your brother!" J.R. and Lizzie realized the fun was over and stopped what they were doing. They were forced and escorted out the delivery exit by their father as Willie Loomis turned to his wife looking oddly at him.

"Carl, why did you do that?" She sounded ridiculous with that accent. "I liked those kids. They were real friendly."

"Carolyn, please..." Willie escorted her calmly and carefully out of the kitchen and through the dining room. "You're not well. This just isn't you."

"What are you talking about?" She was lead to the downstairs bathroom off the main hall where Barnabas had locked Roger in. Briefly opening the door, they pushed Carolyn in as well and locked the door as their prisoners began pounding on the door.

"Willie," Angelique gasped tiredly at the feat as she heard clapping. "Take the kids out for a few hours." She looked up.

"Long time no see, Barnabas." William Collins stood on the balcony over the foyer looking down as Willie looked up and rushed out. "No respect for old family members?"

"Petofi." Barnabas glared to his son. "How dare you return to Collinwood? How dare you terrorize my son!"

"Terrorize?" William chuckled as Barnabas, Angelique and Quentin advanced on him. "Why are you so melodramatic? I thought this was a reunion."

"Reunion!" Angelique scoffed torn as Petofi's mortal enemy and as a mother who saw a new malevolent personality out of her son. "I want my baby back to normal."

"A casualty of war, my dear." William walked past her on the stairs and headed to the drawing room and poured a sherry. He paused a second to the pounding noises in the downstairs bathroom, beamed vindictively once more and turned back to the drawing room. "He has no time left."

"No!"

"Oh yes."

"How did you survive that fire at Tate's studio?" Quentin asked the question on their minds.

"Quentin, my boy," It was odd watching William drinking sherry. "You're an old man! How's your portrait!"

"I destroyed that thing years ago with no thanks to you!" Quentin wanted to strangle William but for his parents present and the realization it was not his favorite nephew really saying these things. "It took me forever to chip away at the spells on it, every witch, medium, sorceress… but it was worth it."

"I can fix that."

"No, you won't." Barnabas stepped forward. "How are you still alive after all these years!" He watched the face of his son laughing at him.

"Couldn't fool you, could I, Collins?" William downed his sherry and started to pour another as Angelique took the bottle to avoid having to watch her son imbibing alcohol. "Well, now," William continued. "I sure fooled the gypsies. They thought I had died too. You see, Collins, I've been around much longer than you think. These eyes saw the Impaler kill the Turks and a thousand renegade colonists break ties to England. I laughed with King Henry as he killed his wives and as a foolish Frank king sign the Magna Carta. My only problems were the gypsies. My alleged death allowed me to go into hiding for a very deep sleep without fear of being discovered. Unfortunately, after all these years, I discovered my body was giving out on me. It could not survive the pangs of immortality I had forced on it nor the standard of high living I was so used to. When I noticed in the newspaper that the son of Barnabas and Angelique Collins had been granted a literary scholarship to a prominent college, I  
knew I had found my answer in the form of the best revenge ever."

"No!" Angelique's eyes welled with tears. "Not my baby!"

"A casualty of war, my dear." William peered at her with such a look of evil she could not believe it and then to Quentin finally aging with the times. "Now, Quentin, your portrait?"

"I don't think so." Quentin grabbed the vase from the piano and cracked it over William's head hard. Watching her son falling to the floor, Angelique dived to her son's body and held on to it not as her enemy, but as the body of the boy born from her own body.

"Quentin!" Barnabas turned to him.

"I've been prepared for this contingency for years." He knelt to Angelique.

"Can you help him?"

"If Petofi'll let me..."

"This is my plan..."

At Rose Cottage, darkness was rolling in as Maggie reheated last night's meat loaf and cooked some vegetables. She glanced back out as her guest was still sleeping in the chair then turned back to her cooking. The little TV on the counter was on near her with the volume turned down. The local FOX affiliate was running the credits to "Raise The Titanic." The Jason Robards and David Selby movie was ending as tonight's promos started.

"Hi," a voice came over the credits. "This is John Walsh and tonight on America's Most Wanted, we're looking for a supposed count so vicious he makes Dracula look like a member of the Vienna Boys Choir. We want this guy so bad and you can help us. Help us tonight to catch Andreas Petofi."

Maggie stopped and turned to the TV.

"Between 1953 and 1958, Petofi was blamed for the deaths of no more than seventeen missing kids." Walsh continued. "Last month, he escaped from Rushmore Sanitarium in Rockport, Maine. Help us to find this psycho tonight!"

Maggie looked to the face on the TV and the man in the chair in her living room and turned the noise down on the TV. She felt her heart skip a beat as she backed slowly to the phone on the wall, picked it up and hit the button for the sheriff's office.

"Hello, Don." She murmured silently. "I think you and your men better get over here..."

11

Sheriff Donald Taylor had taken over for George Patterson in 1973 and returned to the job in 1985 after Dale Buckley held it for one term. Patterson had replaced Ed Davenport who had died in 1971 under odd circumstances. No one had ever found Davenport's stolen remains, but Taylor believed that any day now he was going to come in and find Davenport's grisly corpse propped up at his desk as if he'd never left the job. A Southerner at heart raised by his parents in Mayberry, North Carolina, he and his wife had come to Collinsport in 1975 to live with her relatives for a change.

"Now, Maggie," Don spoke slowly. "Say it again. You got who up there?"

"The guy from TV." She repeated herself. "I saw his face on a promo for America's Most Wanted. His name is Andreas Petofi."

"Petofi." Taylor saw a chance for some national exposure on this sleepy little town. He called out to his men as he lowered the phone. "Wilkins! Hess! Petofi's at Collinwood masquerading as a friend of the family, get up there!"

"Yes, chief!"

"And stop calling me chief!" Don turned back to the phone. "Maggie, calm down, don't arouse his attention. We're coming up there."

"Thanks, Don." Maggie hung up the phone and turned around to look back out of the kitchen. Breathing a short calm breath, she looked up and saw the big chair by the fireplace empty of her visitor.

"William," Quentin hurried up Petofi. "Come up, We have four minutes."

"I don't understand." They entered through doors on the west wing that had been locked up years earlier. "Where are we going?"

"Back to your body," Quentin hurried up the forgotten back steps to the top floor hallway near his old room. Petofi's body was heaving and gasping for breath from the two flights of stairs as the young man in it looked up and saw his father carrying his body down the hall to the big empty bedroom. No one used the bare room for some odd reason. For a long time, it had been sealed off from the rest of the house, but now the wall closing it off had been pulled down and the room was open once more. Empty and stripped of decor, it had a fireplace mantle and wide window seat with attached bedrooms. He might have liked it for himself if he and his cousins were not forbidden to come near it.

"Dad, please help me." Petofi shuffled for Barnabas and reached out to him.

"William, we are." Barnabas helped support him as he lowered him to his mother and his true body on the floor.

"You know who I am." Petofi asked. "This doesn't make sense."

"William, sweetheart," Angelique took Petofi's hand and placed it on William's heart. "This is not the time. Just will yourself back into your body."

"Three minutes." Quentin announced.

"William, concentrate!" Barnabas stared down to his son looking out from behind those hideous glasses.

"Darling," Angelique looked at the spirit of her son. "My ancestor, your ancestor, Angelique Miranda DuVal was a powerful and beautiful witch..."

Quentin and Barnabas rolled their eyes in amusement. Outside on the estate police cars were screeching to a halt with sirens going.

"Were you named for her?" Petofi's gravely voice responded while Barnabas looked out perplexed.

"This is not the time!" Angelique shrieked with a mother's love. "She was a witch, I was a witch, and you have psychic powers you've never tapped..."

"Angelique!" Quentin was watching the time.

"William," Angelique pressed Petofi's hand to the body of her son as the young man's body stirred. "Go back to your body!"

The son looked wearily out of the old man's body and looked down at his face staring up at him from within a tranquil sleeping state. Angelique pressed her hand to his as well and willed the transference as well as Petofi gasped tired and fell backward.

"Thirty seconds!" Quentin called.

"Angelique," Barnabas knelt down. "Did it work?"

"I don't know!"

"We'll have to risk it." Barnabas grabbed his son's body by the arm and heaved him up. Petofi gasped and looked up as the former vampire dragged his son out of the room. The poundings on the front doors downstairs ran through the house.

"What... no..." Petofi staggered to his feet. "Collins!"

"Five, four, three, two, one." Quentin timed the seconds down as Barnabas shot one last look to Petofi and swung the doors shut on the second. Closed up in the room for the brief second, Petofi realized he was himself again and grumbled angrily as he rose to his feet. Standing once more, he headed to the closed doors and flung them open.

"Collins!" He screamed angrily with every fiber of his being. Charging down the desolate west wing corridor as fast as he could muster, he wondered how they vanished so quickly. He looked around the empty deserted bedrooms and scattered abandoned furniture and toys of forgotten children and continued toward the main part of the structure.

"Collins! How dare you run from me!" He began to notice something wrong. The main hallway of the house was just as dark and abandoned as the west wing. It didn't look this way when he came through as the son. This was a house that had been empty for many years. There were no sirens outside either.

"What is this place?" Petofi noticed the ceiling of the foyer had caved in. Weeds and branches were growing into the house as he looked around. This was a Collinwood that had been deserted for several years! Just where was he!

"What has happened here!" Petofi cried out to the derelict house. He felt a presence as a breeze swept through the open doors of the ruined estate and out the shattered windows of the drawing room. Petofi turned round and saw the odd ghosts looking at him.

Daphne Harridge stood behind the phantoms of Tad Collins and Carrie Stokes. In this timeline, they were still prisoners of Collinwood. They looked confusingly at Petofi and turned round in silence and watched them vanish before him. This was not the same Collinwood he had passed through earlier as Barnabas's son. Somehow, someway, he had entered another sort of Collinwood in another timeline with another past. His mystic senses charged him with wary apprehension and told him to turn round for the moment. Petofi looked up to the dark balcony and saw the angry spirit of Gerard Stiles looking down on him.

"You don't intimidate me, Gerard Stiles." Petofi sensed his identity. "My will is stronger. It is I that shall destroy you!"

12

Lizzie Loomis returned to Collinwood with another of her boyfriends. The local police as well as the State Police were combing the entire estate and all the structures on it looking for Petofi as Lizzie entered the foyer of the main house and looked to her mother. She grinned and held on to her escort. Quentin was saying the man who called himself Petofi had claimed to be a friend of his father, but beyond leaving the fat youth killer at his home, he had no idea where he was, and in sense he was telling the truth. He did not know where in the multiverse of possible worlds the demented alchemist had vanished. Lizzie meanwhile continued into the main house leading another potential sex partner.

"Mom," She piped up before her mother. "This is Jimmy, my new boyfriend. We're going up to my room."

"I don't think so." Carolyn Stoddard-Loomis answered straightforwardly to her and crossed her arms. Lizzie stopped where she was and looked back.

"Crap!" She looked defeatedly to Jimmy. "She's back to normal."

At the Old House, Angelique sat by her son's bed and waited for him to wake up. Quentin had hit him pretty hard and he had not wakened up yet. Both she and Barnabas were pretty well impressed that Quentin had timed the shifts of the Parallel Time Room at the end of the West Wing down so perfectly. Trapping Petofi in another reality on another band of time was a stroke of genius on his part, but she was very upset that he had to crack her son's head to do it.

"Mom," William stirred.

"Sweetheart?" She watched as he rose slowly and looked over to his reflection on the bureau. Seeing his face staring back, he glanced over to his mother and felt his head. The corner of his head was bandaged with a dark spot where he'd been bleeding. He looked down upon his familiar hands and reached to his familiar mullet haircut realizing he seemed to be who he was rather than a wizened old fat man with a failing heart.

"How much..." His mind was still swirling. "Of what happened... Was real?"

"All of it." Angelique couldn't lie to him. "Are you..."

"Darling," She pushed him down and sat on the bed by him. "Please don't ask me that. I'm that sort of person anymore. I'm your mother. That's all you need to know."

"But..."

"No," Angelique's voice quivered with the undying devotion of a mother's love as she realized what she had to do. She took his hand in hers and shed a tear as she looked deeply into her son's big brown eyes. He looked so much like his father to her.

"William," She spoke softly. "Listen to me carefully. You have been sick in bed for five days. Everything you saw was a dream. There never was a Count Petofi. You have been sick for days. You never traveled in time..." Her voice cracked a little with a mother's love for her first born son. "You've been safe at home for five days."

Barnabas and Quentin watched silently from the door as William drifted off. Angelique choked back a tear as she caressed her son's hand and kissed his forehead as he slept away secrets he needn't know.

END


End file.
